Election diary No 10. Wednesday, 9 February 2022.
1 In one of the most insincere acts of contrition ever in Australian politics, Barnaby Joyce apologises to the Prime Minister for saying nasty things about him when he was on the backbench. Things he meant, but later under different circumstances, when he became leader of his own party again, found him more likeable.
Mr Joyce said he commented in a text last year when he was a backbencher and had no working relationship with the PM. He now does and has found the PM to be a man of his word.
Kevin Rudd, the recipient of some name-calling himself, was right onto this hypocrisy, tweeting that:
“Barnaby’s claim that he barely knew Morrison before last year is ridiculous. They’d spent 8yrs together in either cabinet or shadow cabinet – including in the pressure cooker of the expenditure review committee.”
In the leaked text, forwarded to the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by a third-party Joyce said he did not “get along” with Morrison:
“He is a hypocrite, and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time,” Joyce said in the message, dated March last year.
“I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”
The Guardian reported that:
“… it was the second time private text exchanges, critical of the prime minister, have been leaked in a week. On Tuesday, Morrison was blindsided when the Ten Network’s political editor, Peter van Onselen, used a televised question and answer session at the National Press Club to reveal private criticism of Morrison.
Van Onselen told Morrison he had a record of a text message exchange between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian. She branded the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.
“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’,” van Onselen said. “Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”
Van Onselen later said the conversation was between Berejiklian and a federal minister.”
Barnaby Joyce was due to appear on Insiders last Sunday. Guess what? He declined the invitation. The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, took his place. I’ll leave that to your own thoughts.
A Sunday night bombshell:
The minister who shared the text with van Onselen and gave permission to use it was Peter Dutton. If PM Morrison has one more week in free fall the prospect of a leadership change pre-election is real. Party rules don’t count if most MPs think you will lead them to defeat.
— Bob Carr (@bobjcarr) February 6, 2022
I expect his tweet to be splashed all over the front pages the following morning, but there was nothing. I can only find a note from a friend saying Dutton has asked for the tweet to be removed.
@bobjcarr's tweet is baseless, untrue and should be deleted.
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) February 6, 2022
It was the subject of some discussion on ABC News 24 but nothing much else I. What it does highlight, however, is the infighting within the Coalition if it’s not about the future of renewables versus coal, its leadership or revenge.
It seems there is more discussion about politicians’ welfare than the peoples’.
Whether Bob Carr is exploiting an already sick situation for Morrison and the Coalition is unknown. Is it just his opinion, or does he know for sure? We shall have to wait to find out.
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That Morrison is a liar is undisputed. Everyone knows it. That we now have two lying leaders makes a mockery of integrity and trust.
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2 Now at the risk of repeating myself, let me talk about the voters, the ones who decide who governs us. Their opinions are reflected in the numerous opinion polls that are regularly published, but we cannot be 100% sure. Polls are often wrong.
The great majority of people come together every three years to vote unthinkingly for the party their parents voted for. As bad as they have governed, they wouldn’t betray the party.
There are others who, from election to election, glibly take little notice of the affairs of the state. They stand by dispassionately, wondering why politicians are paid so much to do so little.
I would also think that a fair proportion of voters wouldn’t even know who is standing for election in their electorate. Many wouldn’t know who they might vote for until they close the curtain on the booth.
There will be those who will decide based on the scantest information; however, given the lifestyle they live, that’s of little surprise. A modern lifestyle leaves little time for thoughts on politics.
Yet, another group changes their vote according to what’s in it for them. “How will your policies benefit me?”
By far, the largest growing group are those who have opted out of the system altogether, saying a pox on both your houses.
Smack in the middle is a cohort of non-aligned thinkers who put all else aside, placing the country’s good at the top of their priorities. They are called the swinging voter.
This group was estimated at 10% of voters long ago without research. It is now thought to be around 20%. Well that, as I recall, was John Howards figure. However, polling shows that older voters generally support the right and the younger ones the left.
Today’s voters have been subjected to (in my view) the worst governance of any period I can ever remember. The reader should assume that I don’t have a high opinion of the average voter. However, why people continue to vote for a failed party in the face of abject negligence is a mystery.
Then I turn my attention to Labor and wonder about its prospects. At the moment Albo is sitting back, allowing the Coalition to dig its own grave. Since being elected as leader he has restored some of Labor’s traditional ideology but with a modern take. There is far less importance on unions and a concentration on fairness and traditional left values like equality.
Those who want to apply the first rule of politics – obtaining power – must realise that the electorate has had enough of far-right ideology. Many are disgusted with the methods used to acquire power at all costs and its retention. Better to gather the trust of the people with good honest politics.
The door has opened for Labor to fix the many wrongs perpetrated by this undemocratic conservative bunch of unscrupulous lawbreakers full of people with little regard for the constitutional dignity of the parliament.
With scant regard for empathy, fairness, righteousness, compassion, equality of opportunity, it is prepared to go to any end to retain the power it has. A power they say they were born to rule with.
But right now the government is falling apart… let’s hope the voters are paying attention.
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My previous diary post: A prime ministerial address or a media undressing.
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My thought for the day
We live in a time where horrible things are being perpetrated on us. The shame is that we have normalised them and adjusted accordingly.
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